


The Sea of Statues - Chapter 1

by c2t2



Series: The Sea of Statues [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Ghost Ships, Hammerspace, treasure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 12:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20835635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/c2t2/pseuds/c2t2
Summary: The Straw Hats encounter Creature Ex Machina, and explore a ghost ship.





	The Sea of Statues - Chapter 1

As Zoro opened the trapdoor and climbed down to the Sunny’s deck, Usopp paused in the middle of telling a story and pointed off the starboard railing. “Look!”

The crewmembers on deck all glanced with various levels of interest in the direction he pointed, then did double-takes and looked a lot more intently at the sight that was coming toward them, even calling the indoor crewmembers out onto the deck to see it.

After all, it’s not often that you see a giant ball of treasure floating directly at you.

A filmy, glittering, teardrop-shaped mass floated through the misty skies of the Florian Triangle towards the Sunny. Inside the translucent exterior could be seen a gleaming pile of treasure. The Strawhats gaped for a moment before Usopp slammed his goggles down over his eyes and hurriedly focused the lenses.

“Gold bars,” he started muttering to himself, “Ooh, silver! Jewelry? Is that for a neck or a head? Whoa, that’s a lot of paper money! I’ve never seen coins that look like that before… what island are they from? That vase looks really old. Is that a decorative sword or a useful one?”

Chopper made a small squeaking sound as it came closer. “Is that a… bird?”

At first its color had blended in with the mist. A gigantic purple bird, about the size of a small ship, was at the apex of the teardrop, carrying the glittery net in its orange beak. The gleaming from the gold and jewels, not to mention the glitter of the net itself, had obscured the comparatively dull bird from view until now. As it approached they could see it more clearly. The deep purple color of the bird’s feathers faded into green at the tips of its wings and tail. Its long graceful neck didn’t seem to struggle with the weight hanging from its head. Its wings beat smoothly and barely ruffled the mist of the Florian Triangle as it passed over the Sunny.

It was hard to look at the details of the bird, though, when a king’s ransom of treasure was passing just over Sunny’s mast.

The treasure was unusually varied and diverse. As it floated overhead, those of them with better eyesight could make out gold and silver ingots, coins that seemed to come from a variety of currencies both modern and ancient, ornate antiques and jewelry, fancy ornamental and ceremonial items from unknown cultures… In other words, everything generally associated with treasure.

“How does it fly while holding up that much gold?” Chopper wondered, “That ball of treasure looks half the size of the bird. The weight must be unbelievable.”

“Maybe the glittery thing is an antigravity net?” Usopp suggested, “Like the one I used when I was four years old to –”

Nami’s fist clobbered him over the head, _“Physics doesn’t work like that.” _

“Pardon me, Nami-san, but if we had to follow the laws of physics, none of our adventures would have been possible,” Sanji shrugged.

“Yeah! We’re pirates!” Luffy chimed in, “Pirates don’t have to follow the laws!”

_“Physics doesn’t work like that either.”_

“I’m afraid I have no answer.” Robin sounded thoughtful.

“Dunno,” Franky shrugged.

“See?” Usopp sounded triumphant, “Franky didn’t say an antigravity net was impossible!”

“WAIT. WHY THE HELL ARE WE TALKING ABOUT PHYSICS? MY TREASURE IS GETTING AWAY! FOLLOW THE GODDAMN BIRD OR I’LL RIP YOUR EYES OUT!” Nami grabbed Luffy by the throat and started shaking him.

“The Florian Triangle has no wind or surface currents,” Usopp wailed, “we’ll never catch up!”

“Wait!” Franky leapt up on the ship’s railing and posed, “The Soldier Dock System!”

“Yeah!” Luffy crowed, “We’ll use the paddles again, the ones that helped us get away from that storm!”

Franky ran to the helm and soon the paddles were churning, following the ripples the bird had left in the deep purple mist.

“We’re not fast enough,” Zoro spoke up, saying what everyone must be noticing. They could only make out the indistinct shadow of the bird now as it steadily pulled ahead. “It’s disappearing into the mist.”

“We need to be faster!” Nami shrieked, “Who has the strongest legs? Sanji! Luffy! You guys run on the paddles and speed them up or I swear there will be hell to pay!” she had grown shark teeth by the time she finished speaking.

Two-point-seven seconds later Franky had installed bars on the sides of the ship for Luffy and Sanji to hold onto as they tandem-ran on the blades of the Sunny’s paddles, forcing the ship ever faster.

As the two of them ran on the world’s weirdest stairclimbing machines, ‘faster’ did not necessarily mean the ship moved in a straight line. When a paddle was going faster on one side than the other, the rudder could only do so much to compensate.

Of course, Nami didn’t allow either one to _slow down_ to match pace, only screaming at the other to go faster until he was the one going too fast, so she would scream at the first one to go faster again.

In this way, the Sunny zigzagged haphazardly through the mist of the Florian Triangle.

***

Some amount of time later, Luffy and Sanji were both draped over the railing, looking completely wrung out. Monsters they may be, but Luffy had just maintained stamp gatling for five minutes, two of which were in gear second. While Sanji, however strong his legs, had been forced to keep up despite being merely human.

“Thankfully for you morons, there is still a chance. We may be slightly off course due to your inability to make the Sunny go in a straight line, but I think I got us back reasonably close to the bird’s trail, and I managed to calculate its trajectory. It was flying 47.3 degrees clockwise off log point. As long as the bird keeps in a straight line, we should be able to follow it to wherever it took my treasure.”

“That may be sooner than you think, Nami,” Usopp said, still peering ahead through the mist with his goggles, “There’s something straight ahead.”

Sure enough, in the mists ahead of them a shape was slowly emerging.

“It’s a ship!” Luffy pointed out unnecessarily, having recovered his breath. He grabbed Sunny’s railing and began backing up, stretching his arms and building tension.

“There’s something wrong with it,” Zoro warned too late. With a _p-twang_! Luffy had already slingshotted himself over to the other ship before it was clearly visible.

A startled yelp from Luffy came back at them through the mist, but after that initial outburst there was silence.

The ship became clearer as it drew closer. Now the whole crew could tell what it was – a Marine warship, and a big one. The sides of the hull towered over Sunny so far that they couldn’t see the other ship’s deck. The faded outlines of the World Government symbol painted on the ragged sail of the Marine ship must have been what startled Luffy.

Rather, it _had_ _been_ a Marine warship, once upon a time. shredded sails and thick barnacles crusting the weathered planks of the hull indicated that it had been abandoned for quite a long time.

Nami sighed, “So who wants to go with me to retrieve our captain?”

Zoro was surprised for a moment that she was volunteering but quickly realized what her logic must have been. Luffy was on the apparently-abandoned ship, and would fight anything dangerous they came across. Meanwhile, Nami could board and steal anything that was not nailed down.

After pulling alongside the ghost ship, dropping anchor, and drawing straws – it was determined that Zoro would accompany Nami to the other ship. Which, okay. Sure. Zoro had no problem with that. Despite his newly acquired reluctance when it came to exploring, there probably wouldn’t be any traumatizing pervert-furniture on a Marine ship. Right?

Franky introduced the crew to Soldier Dock channel 2, which contained a small boat he named the Mini Merry. Its paddles brought Nami and Zoro to the former Marine ship without incident, and soon they were boarding the wreck by climbing the towering side of the hull.

Minutes later the two of them hauled themselves over the railing onto the deck… or what was left of the deck. They looked around apprehensively. The entire ship looked like it had been used as a minefield, gaping holes pocketed the deck, providing direct access to the bowels of the ship. The holes varied in size, the smallest of them looked to be about twenty feet across, and the largest about twenty meters. The precarious remaining pieces of deck that still existed between the holes provided unstable walkways like a web of catwalk planks over the exposed innards of the ship.

That’s when a sickly groaning sound echoed across the deck, making Nami and Zoro glance at each other to verify that, one, they both heard it, and two, neither of them had made the sound. They stared in caution (Zoro) and terror (Nami) as a form slowly began to take shape out of the mist, shuffling towards them on one of the narrow walkways that were all that remained of the ship’s deck. It was humanoid in shape, but something about the way it was moving was so utterly wrong that it made the hairs on Zoro’s neck stand up.

Now that he could make out the form, Zoro could see that it walked with an unnatural gait, moving first one leg then the other forward, but each step the leg bent in random directions and at no particular location on the leg, not using any noticeable joints. Its arms were both straight in front of it, and most disturbingly they were waving - alternating flapping up and down, the hands and fingers wiggling bonelessly.

Zoro’s fighting instincts kicked into gear. The thing shuffled forward barely a few inches at a time, which meant it would be easy to outmaneuver, if only there was room to do so. But the narrow walkways made that possible tactic much harder, and Zoro had Nami’s relative lack of physical ability to consider. She couldn’t leap around the deck like he could, and just because the thing was moving slowly now didn’t mean that was all it was capable of.

The thing continued groaning and shuffling forward, and now Zoro could see that it had no face, nor any other features. It looked to be made entirely of something rubbery or gelatinous, with no bones or joints, so the entire mass wiggled with each movement as it scraped slowly forward.

Nami shrieked and hid behind Zoro as it approached, and the swordsman reached for Wado’s hilt, ready to draw.

Suddenly, the disturbing groaning was interrupted by snickering and giggling. A very familiar giggling.

Zoro sighed, “Damnit, Luffy! What the hell!?”

“Shishishi… Sorry Zoro, but you guys should have seen your faces!” Luffy popped out from hiding behind the thing, where he had been crouching and manipulating its limbs. “Check out the JellyMan! Creepy, yeah?”

He unceremoniously tossed the thing onto the walkway in front of him, where it continued to quiver and wobble for a long minute before going still.

Zoro facepalmed and Nami sighed, echoing Zoro’s, “Damnit, Luffy!” before edging cautiously toward the thing, reaching out to gingerly poke at it with her Clima-tact – flinching back when the jostling started it up wiggling again.

“That’s the only interesting one,” Luffy said, pouting, “I looked for treasure, Nami, don’t worry! But all there is is these guys.”

Nami cocked her head, trying to parse Luffy’s less-than-stellar communication skills. “What guys? Wait, you already checked every room on this huge ship?”

“Yep,” Luffy said, popping the P. “Every room is broken open, so it’s easy to look around quickly.”

“Wait, I don’t believe that. Let me see,” with that, Nami produced a rope and grappling hook out of nowhere and began to use her burglary-honed agility skills to make her way into the lower decks. Luffy followed hot on her heels.

Zoro sat himself down and leaned against the railing for a nap while Nami and Luffy’s voices floated steadily up from the bowels of the stadium-sized ship. He had no idea how long he slept until the voices drew closer again and called his name.

“Zoro, hey Zoro! We’re ready to go back now,” the swordsman opened his eyes to see Nami and Luffy emerging from one of the holes. Nami was empty-handed, but Luffy…

“What the hell is that.” Zoro grumped irritably.

“Zoro, meet Strawman! There’s some wooden ones down there. Stone too.” Luffy climbed onto the deck with what appeared to be a scarecrow-mannequin-doll slung over his shoulder.

Zoro looked to Nami for interpretation, who shrugged, “He wanted to show it to you.”

“Look!” Luffy plonked the doll down on an intact piece of deck and placed his hat on its head with a flourish, “Strawman has a straw hat!”

Zoro rolled his eyes but smirked anyway, and then started looking more closely at the man-sized strawman. Whoever had made it must have put in a lot of work. The face was nearly featureless, with only a hint of a bump where the nose would be and slight impressions of hollows for eyes. But a surprising amount of detail had gone into shaping each of the fingers and toes. Zoro didn’t know anything about weaving, but that must have been skillful too since not a single strand of straw had popped out of the thatching despite Luffy’s less than gentle handling.

“So how was the ship?” Zoro asked Nami.

“Terrible! Not a speck of treasure. There wasn’t so much as a single copper penny aboard,” she scowled as if the ship had personally insulted her, “Even the non-treasure supplies are ruined. This ship has been open and exposed for so long that everything in storage is unusable.”

Zoro knew the correct reply would be, “That’s a shame,” but honestly, he couldn’t make himself care enough to say it. They already had all the supplies they needed in Sunny’s storage rooms.

Instead he said, “So what do we do now?”

“Let’s go back to Sunny!” Luffy chirped, plopping his hat back on his head and looping one arm around Strawman. He grabbed the railing with his free hand and began to back up before Nami stopped him.

“Wait, Luffy! Wouldn’t you rather ride in Mini Merry?”

“Ride in what?” Luffy blinked vacantly.

The next few minutes were bright with enthusiastic jabbering as Luffy gushed over the Mini Merry and demanded to go out on a joyride right away. Luffy also insisted on bringing Strawman, but unfortunately the Mini Merry was only capable of holding three passengers, so the straw ‘passenger’ had to be carried by Zoro in the middle seat while Nami worked the paddles in back and Luffy whooped and hollered and waved his arms on the bow.

“Faster, Nami! Faster!”

“It doesn’t go that fast, Luffy. This boat was meant for getting supplies and ferrying us around. It’s not like a Waver.”

“Well maybe it should be! Whooooah, can you imagine? If you put the dials from the waver on this boat how fast do you think it can go?”

Nami’s fist thwacked Luffy on the head, “Don’t touch my waver!” but she’d had to reach past Zoro to reach the young captain, and with her having to weave around the mannequin in the way, her lunge unbalanced the boat and they came within inches of toppling into the water.

At the last second Zoro steadied the craft and once it was finally stable shot Nami a Look. “Do you mind?”

“He was threatening my Waver!” was her indignant reply.

“Let’s go back to our ship,” Zoro sighed.

“Awww…” Luffy whined.

***

“What. The hell is that.” Sanji said flatly when Zoro tossed Strawman down on the Sunny’s Lawn Deck after they finally climbed back aboard their ship.

“There’s Marine statue-dolls! They’re all made of stuff. No treasure though,” Luffy chirped.

Sanji looked to Nami for interpretation, who clarified, “What Luffy was trying to say was that there’s a few wooden and stone statues on the Marine ship, but nothing valuable.” She shrugged and then began talking as if musing to herself, “They’re real statues, though. I wouldn’t call them dolls. Nothing that moves except the jelly-guy.”

If anything, Sanji looked even more baffled, but Zoro wasn’t paying any attention to the crap-cook since Franky had gasped and Robin had bolted upright in her lawn chair.

“**_Statues_**?”


End file.
